DIY Shower Decor

Are you guys sick of baby shower talk yet? 

Well too bad because today I'm sharing my DIY decor and giving you a step-by-step tutorial for making this adorable diaper cake! 

A lot of the decor ideas I had come up with I was able to have designed and printed by my coworkers at Paper Event (see all the details from the shower in Yesterday's Post!) but I was really excited to find fun things that I could make myself, like the following...

Baby Bassinet Fruit Salad
I'm sure you've all seen these around but they're so cute I just had do it! There was watermelon ALL over my kitchen, but I think overall this little guy turned out pretty good. I watched this tutorial to figure out how to make him:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yl7D_eByf8

Baby Food Jar Candy Favors
For these little guys I just bought a bunch of 2oz jars of Organic Baby food, they sell the empty jars online but it's much more cost effective to buy them at the store in which case it's VERY helpful to have a baby to eat all the food for you - thanks Kenely! J 
Once all the baby food was polished off I soaked the jars, peeled off the labels, cleaned/sanitized them in the dishwasher and then spray painted the lids baby blue. After they were all dry I added the "R" sticker, filled them with candy covered chocolate from Party City and tied them with brown twine.

Baby Garland
I bought these super frickin' cute little outfits, hats, mittens, bibs and burp cloths at Carter's (I could spend my entire paycheck in that store, no problem) and the hung them with little blue clothespins from Party City on a string of white and brown twine. Easy peasy.

Mama and Daddy Cups
I originally tried my hand at puff paint writing, but that went terribly wrong so I found super cute blue sparkly stickers and used those for the text, then simply added puff paint dots. For Carolyn's I added a blinged out stem by using two different sizes of the self-stick rhinestones that you can find at any craft store. I started around the outside and worked my way up placing those little buggers one at a time. Then, added a chevron straw to finish it off.

Baby Bump Slideshow
This involved some stalking and creeped Carolyn out a little. But I took a bunch of photos from her facebook and just made a slideshow in "Movie Maker" on my computer. Then we just hooked our iPad up to the TV and let it play.


And then of course there was the diaper cake... 

I knew from the very start of planning that I wanted to make a diaper cake for Jake & Carolyn's Baby Shower Party. But, I knew it had to be awesome. When Carolyn hosted my baby shower she made not only an adorable diaper cake, but a diaper wreath AND a diaper motorcyle. 

Needless to say, the bar was set pretty high. 

So I set out on our beloved Pinterest to find inspiration for my cake and ultimately landed on these: 

I used elements from each of these cakes to create my own. 

Here's what you'll need: 

• A cake stand. I used THIS 13 inch plastic cake stand from Party City. 
• A bottle of champagne.
• Diapers (duh!) I got a 122 count box and used all but probably 20 diapers. 
• Rubberbands. I recommend getting a variety of sizes. 
• Double-sided tape
• Chopsticks (not pictured)
• Whatever you want to use to decorate - I used pacifiers, a beanie baby, a little balloon (not pictured), baby bubble bath, baby powder, ribbon, "it's a Boy" charms, googly eyes, baby washcloths and baby socks. 

Here's what you do: 

Start by centering your bottle of champagne in the middle of your cake stand. 

 Next up, start rolling your diapers. I rolled as I went so that I didn't spend unnecessary time rolling diapers I wouldn't end up using. For the first tier of the cake I used two diapers per roll, for the second tier I used a combo of both two diapers and one diaper per roll and for the top two tiers I used just one diaper.

 I rolled the diapers label side in so that they were all white and kept them together with a small rubberband.

Next, I starting placing the diaper rolls around the champagne and keept them in place with larger rubberbands...Beeb - when you finally take this apart someday you are going have all the rubberbands you will ever need!

After the first tier was done I assembled tiers 2, 3 and 4 each one slightly smaller than the tier below it. Again, keeping the diapers in place with larger rubberbands.

Because the 4th and final tier was higher than the champagne bottle I inserted two chopsticks in to the third tier to keep the top tier of diapers in place, which I of course don't have a photo of. 

 After all four tiers were in place I messed with the diapers to make sure they looked right, were fluffed up and found the best side to use as the front. I rotated the tiers until all four had their best face forward and then it was time to decorate!

I started by wrapping all four tiers with a thick blue ribbon.

And then I added a smaller blue polka dot ribbon on top of that.

To attach the ribbons I simply used double-sided tape which allowed me to move and adjust the ribbon if I needed. 

Once the ribbon was attached it was time for the fun part! Adding all the little details!

When I saw these little guys on Pinterest...

...I knew I had to find a way to incorporate them in to the shower, and thought on the diaper cake would be the perfect place. 

 They are so simple to make, all you need is a diaper, a rubberband, a baby washcloth, a baby sock, some googly eyes and a hot glue gun.
You roll your diaper just as you would for the diaper cake and then literally swaddle the diaper with the washcloth, which thanks to Kenley I am a pro at.

 Then you simply put the sock on the top and glue on the eyes. So easy and so cute! To attach them to the diaper cake I slid a chopstick into the hat and then shoved the bottom into the tier of diapers below them.

As for the final design elements...I played and tweaked and changed my mind about 200 times. I finally ended up booger gluing the baby bubbles and baby powder to the ribbon, tying a little bow and hanging a "it's a boy" charm from it and then super gluing to the cake and then adding my baby boy bear and balloon to the top! 

 This thing took me hours to make, but I am so pleased and proud of how it turned out!